When your movie is called Prometheus and the ship in the movie is called “Prometheus,” chances are it’s pretty damn important. Sure there’s the obvious link to the Greek myth of a Titan who helped the mortals and was punished by being chained to a boulder to have his liver constantly eaten away. But in Ridley Scott‘s new film, the ship is the thing. A new featurette has come online that shows that gorgeous vessell in all its glory, complete with quotes from production designer Arthur Max about its design and more.

However, for a film that takes place three decades before Alien, that tech sure looks a little too advanced. Check out the featurette below and discuss how the hi-tech ship fits into the Alien universe.

Here’s the new Prometheus featurette. It’s spoiler free, though the last minute or so does show some new footage from the movie.

Very, very cool. However, I have one gripe that I’m hoping gets cleared up in the movie, which opens June 8.. With the Star Wars prequels, everyone always bitches that the ships look way too new and polished when compared to the ships that came after it. Shouldn’t the newer ships look better instead of the other way around? In that universe, that’s explained by saying once the Empire took over, technology went down the drain and while it’s a stretch, it works.

In preparation for Prometheus next week, I’ve been rewatching the Alien movies. Now it goes without saying the first film was made in the late seventies so high end computer technology hadn’t even been thought up yet, but watching the film back now, the interfaces in the ship, Mother, all that stuff looks very, very dated. James Cameron’s follow-up definitely took that into consideration and made things a little newer, but not too much.

The original Alien takes places in 2122. Prometheus reportedly takes place in 2089. Obviously Scott couldn’t make a $150 million sci-fi movie in 2012 with dot matrix technology but the tech on Prometheus is so beyond what was on the Nostromo it’s ridiculous. Full touch screen digital readouts, high definition video, just gorgeous stuff. Thirty years later, there’s Mother, a room size computer with a 13-inch monitor.

Do you think there will be some kind of explanation for the radial devolution of technology? Does this suggest Prometheus doesn’t link up as much with Alien as we’d thought?